U.S. Pat. No. 6,273,771, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a control system for a marine vessel that incorporates a marine propulsion system that can be attached to a marine vessel and connected in signal communication with a serial communication bus and a controller. A plurality of input devices and output devices are also connected in signal communication with the communication bus and a bus access manager, such as a CAN Kingdom network, is connected in signal communication with the controller to regulate the incorporation of additional devices to the plurality of devices in signal communication with the bus whereby the controller is connected in signal communication with each of the plurality of devices on the communication bus. The input and output devices can each transmit messages to the serial communication bus for receipt by other devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,727,036, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a system and method for controlling movement of a marine vessel. An operator controllable device outputs a signal that is representative of an operator-desired rate of position change of the vessel about or along an axis. A sensor outputs a signal that is representative of a sensed actual rate of position change of the vessel about or along the axis. A rate of position change controller outputs a rate of position change command based upon the difference between the desired rate of position change and the sensed rate of position change. A vessel coordination controller controls movement of the vessel based upon the rate of position change command.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,941,253, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a marine propulsion drive-by-wire control system that controls multiple marine engines, each one having one or more PCMs, i.e. propulsion control modules, for controlling engine functions which may include steering or vessel vectoring. A helm has multiple ECUs, electronic control units, for controlling the multiple marine engines. A CAN, controller area network, bus connects the ECUs and PCMs with multiple PCM and ECU buses. The ECU buses are connected through respective isolation circuits isolating the respective ECU bus from spurious signals in another ECU bus.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,272,764, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a remote control device for a vessel that is installed in a vessel and remotely controls a vessel propulsion device of the vessel. The remote control device includes an operation member, an operation load applying mechanism, a control section, and an actuator. The operation member is supported rotatably around a rotation axis, and is operated by an operator to switch the shift position of a forward-reverse switching mechanism in the vessel propulsion device according to the operation angle of the operation member. The operation load applying mechanism applies an operation load to the operation member. The control section controls the operation load. The operation load applying mechanism includes an actuator that adjusts the operation load. The control section is arranged to control the actuator based on a vessel speed of the vessel.
Unpublished U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/190,620, filed Jun. 23, 2016, and assigned to the Applicant of the present application, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a drive-by-wire control system for steering a propulsion device on a marine vessel that includes a steering wheel that is manually rotatable and a steering actuator that causes the propulsion device to steer based upon rotation of the steering wheel. The system further includes a resistance device that applies a resistance force against rotation of the steering wheel, and a controller that controls the resistance device to vary the resistance force based on at least one sensed condition of the system.